Solitaires
by Sorciere
Summary: Rogue and Logan find a brief moment of comfort from their nightmares


Title: Solitaires  
Author: Sorcieré (hack_heaven@usa.net)   
Disclaimer: These wonderful characters don't belong to me (damn). The poem, however, does, so there's at least *something* in this fic they can't sue me for...  
Category: Character study and a wee bit of angst, I suppose.  
Rating: PG-13 to be safe.  
Series: Nope.  
Pairing: R/L. Duh.  
Summary: Rogue and Logan find a brief moment of comfort from their nightmares.  
  
***  
  
We are the outcasts  
The lone solitaires  
We are the ones  
About whom no one cares.  
  
We are the few  
- Wide awake in the night  
A scream on our lips  
And trembling of fright.  
  
***  
  
Rogue was jolted from sleep with the beginning of a scream still lingering on her lips. Driven by panic and pure desperation, she tumbled out of the bed and was halfway across the room before she realized what she was doing.  
Rogue backed into a corner and stopped, her body rigid with tension, her every nerve-end raw with the feel of adrenaline rushing through her veins.   
She ignored her rapid, shallow breathing, her painfully quick heartbeat that sounded like thunder in her ears. Ignored it and focused on her surroundings.   
Listened for the footsteps she was sure would be coming, the sound of glasses being filled with champagne, doctors congratulating each other.   
Felt her nostrils flare, trying to pick up the clinical stench of the room, the smell of liquid adamantium.   
They would come for her, she was sure of that. They needed their mutie with the healing factor to create a perfect weapon, to create a one-man army, an assassin who would follow their every command.  
  
She pushed her senses to their extreme limit, until her nostrils felt like they were afire from the scents around her, until her ears hurt from even the sound of a small gust of wind outside.  
  
Pushed her senses, focused them, focused and found...  
  
Nothing.   
  
No footsteps, no shouting...  
  
Only silence and the familiar smell of her room.  
  
Rogue lifted her right hand slowly, almost fearfully. Let a gloved finger run across the lethal skin. There was no marks, no cuts from the knifes she had felt tear through her flesh, through muscles and bone. No physical scars from the pain she'd felt as they engulfed her in water and covered her skeleton with an unbreakable metal.  
  
She felt her heartbeat decelerate to near normal and the adrenaline-level in her blood start to go down.  
  
Rogue sunk to the floor and cried.  
  
Cried for her loss of innocence, for the cruelty of the word, for the nightmares and her cursed skin.  
  
But most of all, she cried for the ageless man known to the world only as Wolverine.  
  
***  
  
Logan wasn't sure exactly *how* he knew when Marie had a particular bad nightmare, but he knew.  
  
Sometimes, he would wake up, covered in sweat, feel his claws pierce his skin and he would lash out at some unseen enemy, driven by instinct and anger.  
  
He would feel the pain and it would bring him back to reality. And sometimes, he would feel a faint tug in his heart, a black spot of fear and sadness. And he knew, knew without doubt, that in the room next to his, a young girl with poisonous skin was trapped in a nightmare beyond comprehension, trapped in a nightmare that was not her own.  
  
And anger would turn into guilt, for *he* was the one responsible for those nightmares. Guilt, because at some level, his animal half took a perverted satisfaction in knowing that the girl, the girl he'd saved and thus, in a way, was his, still had part of him in her.  
  
He would walk soundlessly out of the room and follow the short path he knew by heart. He would open the door and find Marie, sometimes still asleep, caught in the nightmare, sometimes curled up in a corner, crying and shaking.   
  
It tore his heart apart to see her like that. She had already been through too much in her young life - seen and experienced too much. His memories, Magneto's...it was too much for someone who was barely eighteen years old.  
  
Sometimes, it wasn't his nightmares that had her crying. Sometimes, she would look at him with eyes that were too old, too worn out, and tell him about the Nazi death camps, tell him about the murder of millions of innocent, tell him about people who would betray and kill for a piece of bread. She would tell him of gas chambers, of piles of hundreds of bodies, of people starved to the point of near death.   
  
Sometimes, she didn't say anything, and he didn't have to ask. Those nights he knew that the monsters that had driven her from sleep had taken the form of laughing doctors and glass-cages filled with liquid. Every once in a while, he would look down and see her rub her knuckles, just like he himself did. Or he would notice her nostrils flare slightly or any of the other hundreds of things she'd gotten from him.  
  
Then he would look at the little girl curled up in a corner, and he would feel the guilt rise once more.  
  
And he would comfort her the only way he could.  
  
***  
  
Rogue didn't look up when she heard someone enter the room. She knew it was Logan. No one else would dare to walk into her room on a night like this. They were afraid of accidents, afraid of her. They felt the same way about Logan.   
They feared him, feared that he might lash out at them, too, feared that they would find themselves with three claws through their chest.   
  
Only Logan would dare to walk in and comfort her, and only she would ever walk into Logan's room and wake him when he had a particular bad nightmare.   
  
They were outcasts among outcasts, the freaks of the mutant race.  
  
Rogue felt two strong arms around her and she let out a weak whimper. She felt Logan lift her ever so gently and carry her to the bed, and she curled up in his lab and let the tears fall freely.  
  
"Shh...it's okay, darlin'. It's okay."  
  
Logan's whispered words were said in a tone that was far more gentle than anyone would ever imagine the Wolverine capable of. Rogue sniffled and held on to him for dear life, never, ever wanting to let go. She felt him rub her back gently and kiss her softly where her hair was thick enough to protect him from her skin.  
  
Rogue treasured these small, affectionate gestures. They were the only touches she ever felt, even surrounded by fellow mutants as she was.  
  
The students on the school, the X-Men and her classmates...they all tried not to be too obvious about it, but she knew that they were nervous around her. They would stay at least one feet away from her, usually more, if possible. They would step back just a few inches when she passed them, would look slightly panicked when she on rare occasions showed a small stripe of skin, or didn't wear one of her scarves. Once, she'd even seen them part like the Red Sea when she walked through one of the crowded rooms.   
Rogue understood them, but it hurt to see them do it, hurt to see them keep their distance, much as one might do when faced with a poisonous snake.  
  
Only Logan didn't fear her, and he was actually the only one on the mansion who *did* know what her touch felt like. He'd felt it not once, but twice, and had nearly died the last time. And still he would come to her room in the dark of the night and hold her while she cried.  
  
The stream of tears stopped and Rogue dried her eyes and rested her head on Logan's shoulder. This made the nightmares almost bearable, the fact that she wasn't alone, never alone, that she shared a deep connection with Logan, that she could fall asleep in his arms and that she had someone to share her pain with.  
  
She closed her eyes and welcomed oblivion.  
  
***  
  
Logan stroked Rogue's hair until he felt her heartbeat slow down and her breath even. They did this whenever one of them had a nightmare...which was frequently. Some nights, like this, it was Rogue. Some nights it was Logan himself, and the girl with the white streaks would wake him up, careful to stay out of reach of the metal claws, and she would comfort him until he fell asleep again.  
  
They were two solitaires in a place that should have been full of companionship and hope. Two solitaires, too dangerous for others to feel at ease around, two solitaires that would always stay together, for there was no one else they could - would - trust.  
  
Logan shifted slightly, to find a more comfortable position, but was careful not to wake up Rogue. He kissed her lightly on her forehead, too fast for her mutation to react, and stroked her hair again.  
  
Before he surrendered to sleep once more, he did the only thing he could do and prayed to whatever Gods might hear him that the two of them would have just one night of undisturbed sleep.  
  
***  
  
We are the few  
And soon we're gone.  
It's a lost, hopeless world  
Why should we go on?  
  
***  
  
~Fin~ 


End file.
